Leaders who are hesitant about a proposal are always committee-happy. They form advisory panels to create lengthy proposals with bullet-point recommendations. They seek all the advice they can get. Sometimes this is rooted in the genuine desire to be thorough and inclusive. Sometimes it’s just a stall tactic to delay the tough vote.

Conversely, leaders who are really eager to approve something move quickly. Committees and study groups are generally considered more of a hindrance than help, only formed when legally required. Let’s cut to the chase and get this done. That’s the attitude of a group in agreement.

Given these tendencies in leadership, I’ll be utterly shocked if Elbert County commissioners vote down the proposed waste-to-energy trash incinerator near Madison County Monday night. I think commissioners in any county facing any tough vote have to deal with their emotions, their values, their pride. The incinerator proposal is not some controversial zoning request that suddenly dropped in the laps of Elbert County commissioners. No, this is really their baby. They opened the door for this thing. It would be a kind of betrayal of their own judgment to vote against their own move. To vote this down would be an admission that they were wrong to consider it.

When leaders are faced with an angry crowd and widespread public resentment, we sometimes see them swayed, but other times they seem to take on the bunker mentality, perhaps feeling that they are in the right and that they are going to bear the burden of public hate to bring a greater good to their homes, even if the price is steep politically. Anything that conflicts with this inner-group belief is merely interference for what has to be done.

Elbert County commissioners hastily scheduled a vote for Monday on the incinerator. I don’t know these gentlemen, but I do understand emotional anguish. And enduring the yard signs, the wrath, the disapproval of some long-time friends and acquaintances, these things have to be mentally and emotionally exhausting. How could they not be? If the Elbert County commissioners approve the incinerator project Monday, their hardest part is over. The matter will then become an endless morass of permitting paperwork and regulatory agency acronym agony (a legalese purgatory that lasts about a year). The matter won’t be on them anymore. It will be on the permitting company, GreenFirst, and the regulatory agencies. But if they delay the vote, they have to live with continued public debate and emotional toil.

Expect the approval.

In the meantime, a number of citizens are doing everything they can to stop it before the vote. This includes quite a few Madison County people, who feel that Madison County has nothing to gain and a lot to lose from a large trash incinerator just over a mile from the county line and the Broad River. They worry about air and water contamination, as well as hundreds of trash trucks traveling Madison County roads each week on their way to the incinerator. A petition is in the works to force a referendum on the incinerator. And Madison County residents are playing big parts in the citizens’ group spearheading opposition to the incinerator.

For all the technical talk, this thing boils down to a simple word: trust. Do you have it or not? Some are willing to trust that everything will be just fine with a major incinerator. Some are absolutely not ready to trust. You can offer all the evidence one way or another on such things and it’s hard to budge people once they’ve decided to trust or not to trust.

Incinerators exist elsewhere, but they are not commonplace methods of trash disposal. Technology is a wonderful thing. And there are certainly smart people who’ve put a lot of work into filtering pollutants from burned trash. But there’s no eyeball test for particulate matter. You can receive safety assurances, but you can’t see mercury particulates, or lead or other carcinogens released over time. You can hear from those selling and permitting the operation, but you can’t know who will be in charge of the operation in 10 or 20 years. You just have to trust in a yet-to-be determined company’s staff and technology, assuming that the facility will be appropriately regulated by the government over time and that profit motives won’t ultimately outweigh consideration of your health. This is a tough pill for many to swallow.

It’s reasonable to feel skeptical about such proposals when you hear that the facility would burn 1,200 to 1,500 tons of trash a day, as GreenFirst CEO Ernest Kaufman said Monday. Multiply 1,500 by 2,000 pounds by 365 days. That equals 1,095,000,000 pounds. So, if the facility runs every day, it could burn one billion pounds of trash a year.

One billion pounds a year of burning trash — that’s quite a heap of matter and quite a heavy dose of expected trust.

Will Elbert County commissioners move forward with the incinerator Monday, or will a group seeking a referendum on the project manage to put the decision in Elbert County citizens’ hands?

Either way, it’s a compelling issue, and a matter that could certainly have an impact beyond political borders in Northeast Georgia.

If Elbert County commissioners approve the incinerator Monday night, their moment away from the spotlight of public opinion will be short-lived. This incinerator, if it is approved and goes into operation, will be around for many years, and these men will be known hanceforth as the ones who made it happen. It's hard to imagine public opinion coming around in 6 or 8 years, with people deciding this incinerator was a swell idea afterall. A decision of this magnitude isn't likely to be forgotten. If Elbert County becomes known as the place where Georgia--and who knows where else--brings its garbage, it's a sure bet citizens will remember exactly how it all bagan, and the spotlight will contunue to shine.

Classic case of "Not In My Back Yard." Everyone in Madison County takes (or pays someone else to take) their trash to the Waste Transfer Station. Key word: TRANSFER. Where do you think it goes from there? You don't care because it goes into someone else's back yard.

We all make the trash. We all have to deal with the trash. Right now our trash goes to pollute someone else's yard. It's time to deal with our trash and landfill problem and stop throwing it on someone else.

You think the incinerator is nasty? Fine...everybody stop generating trash and the incinerator will never burn.

Joe, You are absolutly correct. You have to deal with the trash that you produce, not let it become someone elses problem, or potentially lost revenue. What we have to do is educate the general public that incineration is just that, it reduces the waste, but in doing so it does not stop the flow to the landfills, it does introduce alot of pollutants into the air, and the electricity that it creates is offset by the electricity that the plant requires to operate, therefore it is almost a wash in net energy to the grid.

The alternative to that is a system that will not only stop the flow of trash to the landfill, but actually reverse the need for a landfill. That system is a hybrid t/com system which employes Pyrolisis, gasification and carbonization simultainiously. The result of this is a 90% effienence ratio, the production of three revenue producing bi-products with virtually no harmful emission.

I encourage you and other to at least vist our website at www.carbonbio-engineersinc.com to learn more about this revolutionary process.

that is so true no one ever thinks about anything unless it starts to invilve them, everyone is all about themselves now a days, no granted i know that we do have to be concerned for ourself but only to a certain extent we always have to keep others in mind and in return they will keep us in mind.

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